Hot Magma Gave Rise to Modern Mammals, Study Suggests

Hot magma deep within Earth may have heated carbon-rich rocks, releasing methane into the atmosphere and leading to an ancient warming event, scientists suggest. Here, lava from a 2004 Kilauea eruption flows into the sea.

Credit: USGS

The rise of modern mammals, which came with a dramatic warming of the Earth, may be traced to hot magma, new research suggests.

The Eocene epoch, which saw the emergence of the first ancestors of modern mammals such as hoofed animals, began almost 56 million years ago with global temperatures rising 9 degrees Fahrenheit (5 degrees Celsius) on average over a few thousand years.

The oldest known members of these species were relatively small, weighing less than 22 pounds (10 kilograms) — hinting the heat favored smaller creatures. Larger animals, with their greater body mass, would not be able to handle the excess heat so well. [Gallery: The World's Biggest Beasts]

Some scientists have linked the thermal maximum to a peak of an approximately 400,000-year cycle of variations in Earth's orbit that would have maximized the solar energy the planet received.

"This could have resulted in the warming of deep ocean waters, which would have destabilized large quantities of frozen methane known as methane hydrates stored on the marine continental shelves and slopes," researcher Adam Charles, a paleooceanographer at the University of Southampton in England. "Once released, the methane would diffuse through the seawater and subsequently be transformed to carbon dioxide when reaching the atmosphere."

However, other studies hinted the warming event was caused by activity within the Earth, with magma baking carbon-rich rocks. This would similarly release carbon-rich greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, via volcanic vents.

The ash test

To resolve the debate, Charles and other scientists focused on pinning down when the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum started.

So a group of scientists ventured into the Arctic and tested ancient volcanic ash.

"The group went into the field to analyze the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum sediments armed with rifles in case of polar bear attacks," Charles told LiveScience.

They employed one of the most accurate dating techniques available, known as uranium-lead radioactive isotope dating. This method relies on finding zircon encased in ancient volcanic ash, which they discovered in exposed mountainside rock and a tube of sediment 1,800 feet long (550 meters) drilled from Spitsbergen, the largest and westernmost island of the Arctic Svalbard archipelago.

Their analysis put the date of this major warming event at between 55,728,000 and 55,964,000 years ago. When the scientists compared the age of this episode with models of the Earth's orbital cycles, "we found the onset of the event occurred on a downward swing in the 400,000-year cycle," Charles said. "This suggests that this event was not triggered by changes in the Earth's orbital cycles, but by geological processes."

So the researchers conclude that hot magma was more likely to have led to the spike in global temperatures. This, in turn, may have led to the rise of today's mammals.

Records of how the Arctic has changed over time "are especially important as the region is changing rapidly today," Charles added. By studying how the Arctic behaved in the past, we can "examine the implications for the future of the region as it warms."

The scientists detailed their findings June 7 in the journal Geochemistry Geophysics Geosystems.

Follow LiveScience for the latest in science news and discoveries on Twitter @livescience and on Facebook.

Charles Q. Choi is a contributing writer for Live Science and Space.com. He covers all things human origins and astronomy as well as physics, animals and general science topics. Charles has a Master of Arts degree from the University of Missouri-Columbia, School of Journalism and a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of South Florida. Charles has visited every continent on Earth, drinking rancid yak butter tea in Lhasa, snorkeling with sea lions in the Galapagos and even climbing an iceberg in Antarctica.